As many of you will know the Environment Agency (EA) in Partnership with the United Kingdom Health Security Agency (UKHSA) recently issued an update on the Calne Pong.
It is clear from their statement, that neither the EA nor the UKHSA are really taking this issue seriously enough. In fact, I would go as far as saying they are deliberately only paying a lip service to our complaints. It’s almost as if they are in the pockets of the waste companies as they are doing everything in their power to downplay the effects that are being experienced by us the residents and that they are nowhere near as bad as we are all saying.
They are doing this in several ways.
- One is by placing only one single piece of monitoring equipment at a location, that no one has reported the smell from. It’s at a school which is not occupied at the times of day when the reports are at their highest. Why did the EA not contact any of the addresses of residents that repeatedly complain, such as mine for instance? They have our addresses as they ask for them on the online form every time we raise a complaint.
- Why are they only monitoring from a single location? Again, it would be clear from the reports, of the multiple locations where the smell is impacting residents the most, so why not measure at these multiple locations?
- They are comparing the data measured against a US Environmental Protection Agency Regulation, and they don’t say which one. What is it about that regulation that they don’t want us to know? What I do know about US regulations is that they are nowhere near as stringent as they should be, and they are always watered down by lobbyists with a vested interests and fat cheque books.
- They use the term Annoyance Figures as to downplay the perceived impact it is having on our lives. Well in my humble non-medical opinion, suffering from headaches, nausea, dizziness, watery eyes, stuffy nose, irritated throat, and coughs, is so much more than an annoyance, don’t you think?
- They give you the result as an average of all the measurements they made. Averages do not tell you the whole story as they hide figures of the extreme end of the measurements, both the excessive highs and lows.
What they say
The EA has said in their summary report, that their measurements show that “on average” the exposure is less than 2.0 ug/m3 (microgrammes per cubic meter of air). Yes, it’s true the average is 1.8ug/m3. They also say 1.3% is less than the World Heath Organisations (WHO) annoyance level, but they don’t say what that is.
What the data says
Between 13:50 on 15 October 2025 and 11:45 on 16 April 2026, at this single measuring place, they took 52,679 readings at 5-minute intervals, of which 2,333 readings were missing or invalid (4.43%) leaving 50,346 valid readings. Of these remaining valid readings;
- 10,762 Were above the 2.0ug/m3 (21.38%). That’s 21.38%, above the US EPA regulations, yet they concentrate on just the average. Over a 5th of the time, they were recording at this single, poorly chosen monitoring location, it was above the threshold!
- 839 readings were above 5ug/m3 (1.66%)
- 442 readings were above 10ug/m3 (0.88%).
- 35 readings were above 50ug/m3 (0.07%)
- The highest reading was 78.59ug/m3!!!!! This is well in excess of the 2ug threshold!
I don’t know where we go from here, but I am again calling for the closure of the Landfill, especially in light of recent news that Hills are now increasing the amount being dumped on us, due to other smell related issues at a facility they own and operate in Westbury, which for the last ten years has been subject to smell complaints and only now are the EA taking enforcement action there!